


Borderline

by muchmorethanaprincess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchmorethanaprincess/pseuds/muchmorethanaprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this AU prompt on tumblr: "i’m trying to do homework but some asSHOLE upstairs is blasting shitty 80′s pop and its kind of catchy but i need to study, could you pLEASE maybe turn Madonna down, i don’t care how much like a virgin you are au"</p><p>Things got a bit longer and definitely more emotional than I expected though. Might be OOC, I honestly can't tell at this point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borderline

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry with me on tumblr? muchmorethanaprincess.tumblr.com

Clarke’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling of her dorm, and she sighed for what felt like the fiftieth time that night.

“WHYYYYYY?” She shouted, but there was no way that the person blasting music upstairs could hear her over it, and nearly everyone else in the dorm had gone home for Christmas already. Only the kids who weren’t particularly eager to get home to their families, like Clarke, were still on campus. The last day to take finals was tomorrow, so Clarke had taken advantage of that and told her mother that her last exam was scheduled. (What was a little white lie if it meant they’d have one less day to fight with each other?) But she _did_ have a final tomorrow, because she had put it off to focus on her pre-med classes, and studying for it now was killing her. She was good at science, she was good at art, but she had put this history class on the backburner, and now she was completely overwhelmed. And some idiot upstairs had decided that now, eleven o’clock the night before her last final, was a good time to blast effing 80’s pop.

“I can’t believe this,” she huffed, and stood from her desk. It only took a minute to make it up the stairs, locate the room thumping with music, and begin pounding on the door. When it didn’t immediately open, she pounded again.

The door swung open suddenly, and _shit_ , she was so frustrated that she didn’t even notice that she was banging on the RA’s door, and now that the door was open she could see that it was the _cute_ RA. The one she had seen around the building and maybe admired for his delightfully messy hair and ridiculously adorable freckles. He was also the RA Raven had slept with a few months ago at a party when Clarke had decided to stay home. She remembered Raven’s report when she got back that night – “I’m not interested in anything more than a rebound, but he was a pretty damn good fuck. I mean, I wouldn’t be mad if I saw him naked again.”

Clarke understood that very, very well now, because he was currently standing in front of her, shirtless, as her mouth went dry. _Shit_.

“Can I help you?” He asked. He had turned down the volume of the shitty 80’s pop before opening the door, so it was just crooning softly in the background now.

Clarke was in a bit of a stupor because his freckles trailed over the tops of his shoulders, and she always figured he had a nice body, but… yeah. He had an amazing body. She realized he was smirking at her, and her rage returned in a rush.

“Yeah, do you fucking mind?”

He looked taken aback at her words, so she kept going. “I am trying to study for my last final, but I can’t focus on a damn thing because all I can hear is that Madonna, for the fifth time, still feels like a fucking virgin!”

His mouth gaped, and Clarke would have laughed at his flabbergasted expression if all of the anger wasn’t draining out of her body. She was going to fail this final, and it was going to drag down her grade in the class, which would drag down her GPA, and she really did not need to have a fight with her mother about this too.

“Look, forget it,” she said, and the cute RA’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Just turn it down, okay?”

She was halfway to the stairs before he finally spoke.

“Hey, wait!”

She stopped, but didn’t turn.

“What final is it?”

She took a deep breath. “History 201.”

Clarke didn’t see the triumph on his face, but she heard it in his voice when he said, “Do you want some help?”

She turned to face him. “What?”

He was still standing in his doorway, still with an infuriating smirk on his face, when he said, “I’m a history major, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you seem stressed. Do you want some help?”

Clarke was the one with her mouth gaping now. “Help studying?” She clarified.

He laughed. “Yeah, help studying. You know, I quiz you on dates and political reigns and make you write out your answers to potential essay questions?”

“Yes!” She shouted, and then toned her voice down. “Yes, that would be great. That would be really, really helpful. Um, let me go get my books.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, as she turned to rush down the stairs.

When she returned to his room, he had put on a shirt, which was a shame, but also probably better for her concentration, and the 80’s pop had been replaced with soft instrumental music. He told her to sit wherever she wanted, so she sat on his bed while he settled in his desk chair. The cute RA’s dorm was clean and well organized, but the picture frames around the room, worn books lining the shelves, and cozy flannel sheets gave it a homey feeling.

“Who’s your professor? Did they give you a study guide?” He asked without an introduction.

“Uh, it’s Dr. Kane. Do you want to see it?”

He nodded, and when Clarke handed him her laptop with the study guide open on it, he held back a laugh. “This is a piece of cake, we’ll have you ready in a few hours. What do you need to get on it?”

“An 82 or higher, to keep the grade I have.”

“And to move your grade up?”

“A 94, but that’s not going to happen.”

“We’ll see about that.” He smirked. “I’m Bellamy, by the way. And I don’t actually like Madonna, I was just bored as hell.”

“I’m Clarke. I suck at history, just so you’re forewarned.”

“Noted,” he said with a small smile. “So, when was the Magna Carta written, and what was its purpose?”

Clarke flopped on the bed. “Fuckkk,” she groaned.

Bellamy laughed.

It felt like a good start.

 

An hour and a half later, Bellamy had helped Clarke memorize all of the necessary dates for her exam, and was dealing with her irritated grumbling about “those absolutely useless, idiotic essay questions.”

“They’re not useless!” He said, only a little indignant.

Clarke sat up on his bed. “I am pre-med! I need to know all 206 bones in the body, and how to give IV’s and do stitches. I do not need to know about fucking Ancient Greece.”

“Hey, Ancient Greece is cool. Ancient Greece is fun!”

Clarke rolled her eyes, hard. “Ancient Greece will not help me in surgery.”

“If you’re pre-med, and you obviously hate history, why are you taking this class?”

“It’s my CIV 1 credit. I wanted to take art history, but it was full, and I figured this was worth it just to get through my generals. I was wrong, obviously. This is torture.”

“You’re into art?”

“Yeah,” she said, falling back onto the bed. “Kind of a family thing. My dad did a lot of painting, before he died. When I was a toddler, I was always waddling around with a crayon or a paintbrush. When I got older he let me share his studio. Although now my mom is trying to sell the house. And you can’t exactly take the studio out of the house, so…”

“So she’s selling the place that you feel closest to him.” Bellamy filled in.

“Yeah,” she murmured. She had no idea why she was telling him this. Her only plausible excuse was that she had gotten to the point of tired where she felt almost delirious, but she knew that wasn’t enough. She never talked about her dad. She barely even talked about him when she was drunk. But there she was, telling Bellamy, the cute RA, about her dad.

“Funny.” Bellamy said.

“What?”

“My mom loved history.” Clarke picked up on the past tense instantly. She started to sit up to face him, but he nodded to the shelf above her head.

“Those books were all hers. We moved around a lot, so I don’t have a physical place that reminds me of her. Those books are the closest I can get.”

Clarke turned to the shelf, reading the titles of biographies, political administrations, fallen empires. A few were expensive, leather-bound editions, but most of them were just scrappy paperbacks with worn spines and dog-eared pages. Clarke pulled one gingerly from the shelf, thumbing through the first few pages, until she saw an inscription on the title page. The handwriting was crooked and childlike, and Clarke smiled before her eyes filled with tears. _Happy Birthday Mom, Love Bellamy Blake._

Bellamy hadn’t looked up since directing her attention to the bookshelf. “I guess the things our parents teach us have a way of sticking with us, right?”

“Yeah,” Clarke said, but her voice cracked in the middle of the word. Bellamy looked up, saw her tears, and was at her side in time for the first sob that wracked through her.

The bed tipped in his direction when he sat down, and Clarke’s body rolled into him just as he reached for her.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, as he ran a hand down her back. She clasped the front of his t-shirt in tight fists as she cried, her face pressed against his neck.

“He died a year ago,” she said through tears. “And I _never_ talk about it. Not to anyone. My mom and I can barely even look at each other.” She paused to take in a shuddering breath. “I miss him so much.”

“I know,” Bellamy whispered, clutching her waist.

“How long ago did your mom-” She broke off with a hiccup.

“It’s been four years.”

“Does it ever get better?” Clarke asked softly.

“It always hurts. There’s nothing you can do about that. We’ll always miss them. But it gets easier, especially after the first year. You get more used to the missing – it isn’t as sharp. You’ll be okay.”

She nodded against his chest.

“Does your mom love you?”

“What?” Clarke pulled away from him.

“Does your mom love you?” He repeated. Clarke looked away, but nodded after a moment.

“Then you should make things right with her, if you can.”

“You don’t know what she’s like,” Clarke said, her voice turned icy.

“You’re right, I don’t.” Her head shot up at his easy admission. “But I lost the only parent I ever had. If she loves you, and you love her, you should make whatever you can from that. Even if it’s not perfect.”

Clarke nodded, but didn’t speak.

Bellamy stood from the bed, but as he moved to pass where she was sitting, she grabbed his arm. He turned to her, a questioning expression on his face.

“Um,” she said, not looking at him. “Thanks for dealing with me. Most people kind of suck with the whole crying thing.”

He shrugged. “I have a younger sister. I’m pretty good with periods too.”

His words had the desired effect; Clarke laughed. When she raised her eyes to meet his, she noticed that he had a scar above his lip, and then Clarke was looking at his lips, and shit, her stomach dropped.

She could have sworn she felt the air in the room shift. She moved her hand slowly from where it was still resting on his arm, trailing her fingers over his upper arm ( _God, his arms were a thing of beauty_ ) until she had a grip on his shoulder. When she took a second to break her gaze from his mouth, she saw that he was looking at hers too, so with one big _what the hell?_ in her head, she tugged him down to her.

 _It’s not like I can let Raven be the only one to have kissed him_ , she thought just before their lips met. Then she wasn’t thinking anymore, because she was kissing Bellamy, and his lips were as wonderful as she had imagined while staring at them, and Bellamy was kissing her back, which felt like a heady kind of triumph.

One of his hands grabbed her hip while the other wove through her hair, and Clarke let her legs fit loosely around his waist. Her mouth opened under his, and she liked the way he leaned over her to keep their lips connected, the way they were both breathing heavily. But when she pushed a hand under his shirt and moaned softly into his mouth, Bellamy pulled away. Clarke had to stop herself from whimpering and chasing his lips.

“We should put this on hold,” he said through labored breaths. He rested his forehead against hers. “For a time when you haven’t been recently upset. And after you’ve aced this final.”

“Right, of course,” she said, turning her face away from his. He read the signal and backed off immediately.

“Um, I’m going to go down to the vending machines. Do you want anything?” Bellamy asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

She waited a moment after he left and then headed to the bathroom.

 _Get a grip, Clarke, it’s not like he totally rejected you,_ she thought as she looked at her face in the mirror. Honestly, she looked a bit wrecked. Between the crying and the making out, Clarke was a little puffy and a lot pink. _He said to put it on hold, that’s not a complete rejection. Whatever, it was a gentle rejection but at least he didn’t kick you out for assaulting him._

Clarke peed, cooled her face with a damp paper towel, and returned to Bellamy’s room, only to find him sitting at his desk with a small mountain of snack food.

“You said you were fine but I heard your stomach rumbling like an hour ago. Take whatever you want.” He sounded normal, so Clarke decided to go with it.

“Thanks,” she said as she grabbed a bag of Chex mix and one of the Cokes. “So if you don’t have any finals left, which I’m assuming you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be wasting your time helping me study for mine, what are you still doing here?”

“I’m not allowed to leave until every student on my floor has gone home. Hence the immense boredom, and the uh, 80’s music, to cure the boredom. There are three kids on my floor left, and I’m pretty sure they’re done with finals and just don’t want to go home. But you know, RA policy and whatnot,” he said with a longsuffering sigh.

She mocked him with a pouting face, and he threw a bag of cookies at her in retaliation. She laughed loudly at the faux-grumpy look on his face, and felt her heart lift when his laughter joined in.

Clarke didn’t just like kissing Bellamy (although she really, really did), she just _liked_ him. Maybe if he wasn’t interested in kissing her anymore, he might still be interested in hanging around. He was nerdy and smart and kind, all things considered, and she didn’t mind the handsome-with-a-voice-that-made-her-bones-tingle combination either.

 

When Clarke left his room two hours later, every date and term and person memorized to her satisfaction (which was more strict than Bellamy’s, since stress made her more worried about failure) and five different essay questions prepared for, she asked him, for the _fourth_ time, if he really thought she would pass.

Bellamy sighed. “Yes, Clarke, you’re going to pass. Not only that, I’ll be surprised if you don’t ace it.”

“But how do you _know_?” She whined.

“Because I was a TA for Kane’s class last year. The only thing you could possibly mess up is the essay question, which you won’t, because I prepared you. I know exactly how they grade it and you’re ready.”

It was a testament to how tired Clarke was that she went from zero to a hundred in a split second. “You were his TA?! Oh my god, was this cheating? Did you give me information that I shouldn’t have? Did you help me cheat?!” Clarke yelled.

“No,” Bellamy said, sounding like he was talking to a toddler. When she didn’t calm down, he put his hands on her shoulders, holding her still. “Clarke, we did not cheat. We used the study guide. I did not give you any information that wasn’t available to all the other students. I helped you craft essay responses that would get the most points, but it wasn’t anything that you couldn’t have asked the TA’s if you had gone to their office hours last week. Okay?”

She took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Good. Now stop freaking out, and go get some sleep. Sleep builds memory.”

“Hey, that’s my field,” she said softly.

He chuckled. “I know, doc.”

“Okay, um. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled at her as she turned for the stairs, and she waved weakly.

 

The next afternoon she ran up the stairs, yelling “BELLAMY BLAKE,” as she rushed down the hall. He emerged from his room looking confused, but perked up when he saw her.

“How’d you do?”

“Ninety-fucking-five!” She shouted, and then launched herself at him. He caught her easily, hugging back, and she heard his voice through the muffle of her hair.

“And you thought you were going to fail.”

“What can I say?” She said playfully as she let go of him. “You’re a miracle worker. I mean, that was just the multiple choice, but there’s no way I messed up the essay question, it was the one on Constantinople, I mean how easy can you get-” She cut off when she noticed the way he was smiling. “What?” She asked, wary.

“And you say you don’t like history,” he said teasingly.

“Well, maybe with the right teacher it’s not so bad.”

He smirked.

“I have to go, I’m flying home in a couple hours, but um, I’ll see you after break, maybe?”

Bellamy nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

When Clarke was almost at the end of the hall, Bellamy called to her, just like the night before. “Hey, wait!”

She turned in her place.

“When are you taking your CIV 2 credit?”

“Next semester.”

“Well, uh,” he scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “If you need help studying for that, uh, just let me know.”

“Bellamy Blake, is that your way of saying you want to spend more time with me?”

“Maybe?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and Clarke thought he looked freaking adorable, nervous over her answer.

“Well,” she said, “I’m anticipating it being a pretty difficult class. I’ll probably need a lot of help.”

“Sounds perfect,” he said with a grin.

She smiled coyly, then turned and walked down the stairs.

 

Their first study session after the break happens only a week into the semester, before there’s really anything to study. It takes them twenty minutes in the library to get through the material, _twice_ , and almost no time at all for Bellamy to have her pushed up against a bookshelf in a deserted corner of the third floor.

“I felt weird before, about kissing you after you had been crying. I didn’t want to take advantage of you if you were emotionally compromised, or something,” he mumbles between kisses, “but I wasn’t rejecting you.”

Clarke laughs, and Bellamy kisses the crinkle on her nose. “Not worried about that tonight, I take it?” She asks as he trails light kisses down her jaw.

“Hmm, you seem pretty good tonight,” he says, returning to her lips. She smiles against his mouth, because he’s right, she’s really good tonight. Just as she’s starting to get wound up in another kiss, her stomach rumbles loudly, and Bellamy pulls away.

“I think I should probably buy you dinner," he says. Clarke nods quickly and wonders if she maybe looks a little too eager. But then she thinks that she doesn’t really care. “That sounds perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think?


End file.
